Antelope Mine

Three hundred miners and other workers are being laid off in Montana and Wyoming--including at Navajo operations--as the struggling western U.S. coal industry contends with diminished electricity use during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Officials in Wyoming have reached an agreement with a Navajo tribal mining firm that would give the state of Wyoming authority to take the company to court to enforce environmental laws at two coal mines.

A Navajo Nation company says it will retain 1,200 employees at three coal mines in Wyoming and Montana that it bought through a bankruptcy auction. The announcement Thursday came a day after a federal judge gave final approval for the transfer of the mines from bankrupt Cloud Peak Energy to the Navajo Transitional Energy Company.